Author: Edward H. Miller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826503
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds. Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right. A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group’s paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch’s political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society’s rabid libertarianism—and its highly effective grassroots networking—became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it’s hard to deny that we’re living in Robert Welch’s America.
A Conspiratorial Life
Author: Edward H. Miller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826503
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds. Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right. A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group’s paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch’s political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society’s rabid libertarianism—and its highly effective grassroots networking—became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it’s hard to deny that we’re living in Robert Welch’s America.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826503
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds. Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right. A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group’s paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch’s political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society’s rabid libertarianism—and its highly effective grassroots networking—became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it’s hard to deny that we’re living in Robert Welch’s America.
The Blue Book of The John Birch Society [Fifth Edition]
Author: Robert Welch
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787200493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Robert Welch was the founder of the John Birch Society, a conservative advocacy group supporting anti-communism and limited government. This book is a transcript of Robert Welch’s two-day presentation of the background, methods and purposes of the John Birch Society, as given at the founding meeting in Indianapolis on December 8-9, 1958. The book became a cornerstone of the Society’s beliefs, with each new member receiving a copy. This Fifth Edition include two previous Forewords and a Postscript from earlier editions (1959 and 1961), as well as a new Postscript dated March 15, 1961.
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787200493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Robert Welch was the founder of the John Birch Society, a conservative advocacy group supporting anti-communism and limited government. This book is a transcript of Robert Welch’s two-day presentation of the background, methods and purposes of the John Birch Society, as given at the founding meeting in Indianapolis on December 8-9, 1958. The book became a cornerstone of the Society’s beliefs, with each new member receiving a copy. This Fifth Edition include two previous Forewords and a Postscript from earlier editions (1959 and 1961), as well as a new Postscript dated March 15, 1961.
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
Author: Richard Hofstadter
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307388441
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307388441
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.
The World of the John Birch Society
Author: D. Mulloy
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 0826519830
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
As far as members of the hugely controversial John Birch Society were concerned, the Cold War revealed in stark clarity the loyalties and disloyalties of numerous important Americans, including Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Earl Warren. Founded in 1958 as a force for conservative political advocacy, the Society espoused the dangers of enemies foreign and domestic, including the Soviet Union, organizers of the US civil rights movement, and government officials who were deemed "soft" on communism in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Sound familiar? In The World of the John Birch Society, author D. J. Mulloy reveals the tactics of the Society in a way they've never been understood before, allowing the reader to make the connections to contemporary American politics, up to and including the Tea Party. These tactics included organized dissemination of broad-based accusations and innuendo, political brinksmanship within the Republican Party, and frequent doomsday predictions regarding world events. At the heart of the organization was Robert Welch, a charismatic writer and organizer who is revealed to have been the lifeblood of the Society's efforts. The Society has seen its influence recede from the high-water mark of 1970s, but the organization still exists today. Throughout The World of the John Birch Society, the reader sees the very tenets and practices in play that make the contemporary Tea Party so effective on a local level. Indeed, without the John Birch Society paving the way, the Tea Party may have encountered a dramatically different political terrain on its path to power.
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 0826519830
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
As far as members of the hugely controversial John Birch Society were concerned, the Cold War revealed in stark clarity the loyalties and disloyalties of numerous important Americans, including Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Earl Warren. Founded in 1958 as a force for conservative political advocacy, the Society espoused the dangers of enemies foreign and domestic, including the Soviet Union, organizers of the US civil rights movement, and government officials who were deemed "soft" on communism in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Sound familiar? In The World of the John Birch Society, author D. J. Mulloy reveals the tactics of the Society in a way they've never been understood before, allowing the reader to make the connections to contemporary American politics, up to and including the Tea Party. These tactics included organized dissemination of broad-based accusations and innuendo, political brinksmanship within the Republican Party, and frequent doomsday predictions regarding world events. At the heart of the organization was Robert Welch, a charismatic writer and organizer who is revealed to have been the lifeblood of the Society's efforts. The Society has seen its influence recede from the high-water mark of 1970s, but the organization still exists today. Throughout The World of the John Birch Society, the reader sees the very tenets and practices in play that make the contemporary Tea Party so effective on a local level. Indeed, without the John Birch Society paving the way, the Tea Party may have encountered a dramatically different political terrain on its path to power.
Nut Country
Author: Edward H. Miller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022620538X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
If there was a city most likely to host the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Dallas was it. Kennedy himself recognized Dallas's special and extreme nature, saying to Jackie in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, "We're heading into nut country today." Edward H. Miller makes the persuasive case in this lucid and insightful book that the ultraconservative faction of today's Republican Party is a product specifically of the political climate of Dallas in the 1950s and early 1960s, which was marked by apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and absolutist thought and rhetoric. Miller shows not only that the influential ultraconservative figures in Dallas fomented religious and racial extremism but that the arc of politics bent ever rightward, as otherwise moderate local Republicans were pressured to move away from the center. This faction promoted the creation of the national Republican Party's "Southern Strategy," which reversed the party's historical position on civil rights. This strategy, often credited to Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater in the wake of the crises of the 1960s, has its origins instead in the racial and religious beliefs of extremists in this volatile time and place. Dallas is the root of it all.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022620538X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
If there was a city most likely to host the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Dallas was it. Kennedy himself recognized Dallas's special and extreme nature, saying to Jackie in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, "We're heading into nut country today." Edward H. Miller makes the persuasive case in this lucid and insightful book that the ultraconservative faction of today's Republican Party is a product specifically of the political climate of Dallas in the 1950s and early 1960s, which was marked by apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and absolutist thought and rhetoric. Miller shows not only that the influential ultraconservative figures in Dallas fomented religious and racial extremism but that the arc of politics bent ever rightward, as otherwise moderate local Republicans were pressured to move away from the center. This faction promoted the creation of the national Republican Party's "Southern Strategy," which reversed the party's historical position on civil rights. This strategy, often credited to Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater in the wake of the crises of the 1960s, has its origins instead in the racial and religious beliefs of extremists in this volatile time and place. Dallas is the root of it all.
The Unseen Hand
Author: A. Ralph Epperson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780961413507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Book Description
"It is the contention of the author that the major events of the past, the wars, the depressions and the revolutions, have been planned years in advance by an international conspiracy."--Page 4 of cover
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780961413507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Book Description
"It is the contention of the author that the major events of the past, the wars, the depressions and the revolutions, have been planned years in advance by an international conspiracy."--Page 4 of cover
Conspiracy Theorizing
Author: Gerald Arbuckle
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040029892
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 137
Book Description
Conspiracy Theorizing explore how should individuals with the Christian faith should react to conspiracy theories, their untruths, and their dangers. This book outlines the way that conspiracy theories are the fundamental basis for this stigmatization and scapegoating. It goes further to explain that scapegoating is fostering extreme divisions within in societies and between nations with each side often demonizing the other. This book states how conspiracy theories satisfy people’s needs for certainty, security, and a positive self-image in a world they feel is disintegrating. Uncovering deeper, when the comforting securities of cultures crumble, paranoia makes sense. This book demonstrates that an inability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity draws people to conspiracy theories when they validate their apprehensions. The commentary in this book also validates that since conspiracy theories can never be verified by objective research and truths they are one of the most problematic subjects to expose. This book aims to answer these questions: What are conspiracy theories? Why do they arise, especially in times of cultural upheavals? Are they harmful? What do the Christian Scriptures say about them? Readers that are interested in religion, Christianity and conspiracy theories would enjoy this book.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040029892
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 137
Book Description
Conspiracy Theorizing explore how should individuals with the Christian faith should react to conspiracy theories, their untruths, and their dangers. This book outlines the way that conspiracy theories are the fundamental basis for this stigmatization and scapegoating. It goes further to explain that scapegoating is fostering extreme divisions within in societies and between nations with each side often demonizing the other. This book states how conspiracy theories satisfy people’s needs for certainty, security, and a positive self-image in a world they feel is disintegrating. Uncovering deeper, when the comforting securities of cultures crumble, paranoia makes sense. This book demonstrates that an inability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity draws people to conspiracy theories when they validate their apprehensions. The commentary in this book also validates that since conspiracy theories can never be verified by objective research and truths they are one of the most problematic subjects to expose. This book aims to answer these questions: What are conspiracy theories? Why do they arise, especially in times of cultural upheavals? Are they harmful? What do the Christian Scriptures say about them? Readers that are interested in religion, Christianity and conspiracy theories would enjoy this book.
The Insurrectionist
Author: Peter Adams
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807180491
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Peter Adams’s The Insurrectionist is the first comprehensive biography of Major General Edwin A. Walker, a figure who, in the 1950s and 1960s, became a leader of a far-right political movement known for its elaborate conspiracy theories, authoritarianism, and uncompromising white supremacy. Sixty years before the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Edwin Walker was charged with insurrection and seditious conspiracy. He was arrested on orders from the attorney general after leading a deadly riot against federal marshals as they protected the first African American student attempting to register at the University of Mississippi. Those who flocked to Walker’s side believed an invisible government working with coconspirators in the Kremlin and United Nations would soon enslave America under a one-world dictatorship. Walker’s deep state conspiracy theory has echoed through American political culture into the age of QAnon, finding a new home among today’s far-right extremists.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807180491
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Peter Adams’s The Insurrectionist is the first comprehensive biography of Major General Edwin A. Walker, a figure who, in the 1950s and 1960s, became a leader of a far-right political movement known for its elaborate conspiracy theories, authoritarianism, and uncompromising white supremacy. Sixty years before the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Edwin Walker was charged with insurrection and seditious conspiracy. He was arrested on orders from the attorney general after leading a deadly riot against federal marshals as they protected the first African American student attempting to register at the University of Mississippi. Those who flocked to Walker’s side believed an invisible government working with coconspirators in the Kremlin and United Nations would soon enslave America under a one-world dictatorship. Walker’s deep state conspiracy theory has echoed through American political culture into the age of QAnon, finding a new home among today’s far-right extremists.
Red Square, Black Square
Author: Vladislav Todorov
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791421918
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
This book builds a new vision of the development of Russian revolutionary culture, bringing together fiction, criticism, utopian projects, manifestos, performance and film theory, religious philosophy, and the imaginary space of communism centered around the Mummy of Lenin. Revolution and modernization are two main issues of the book. The author argues that in Modernism the work of art was conceived as a miniature of the world to come; thus, art was meant to make projects, not master-pieces. He analyzes the genre of the manifesto as a special rhetorical device of modernist discourse and shows how projects of biological and social engineering elaborate a vision of a future human type apt to exist under unprecedented conditions. Red Square, Black Square traces the process of totalitarian reduction of the modernist impulse into a rigid party doctrine. It follows the turbulent development of Russian Modernism through its categorical arrest under the official doctrine of "socialist realism." Moscow's Red Square is examined as a primal communist space that manifests the symbolism of power. Viewing communism as an aesthetically, not economically, motivated society, the book enacts "political aesthetics" as a discipline that provides the fundamental tool for an adequate and thorough understanding of communism. Todorov concludes by discussing the rise of nationalism in Eastern Europe as a post-communist condition, and the new mission of the intellectuals.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791421918
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
This book builds a new vision of the development of Russian revolutionary culture, bringing together fiction, criticism, utopian projects, manifestos, performance and film theory, religious philosophy, and the imaginary space of communism centered around the Mummy of Lenin. Revolution and modernization are two main issues of the book. The author argues that in Modernism the work of art was conceived as a miniature of the world to come; thus, art was meant to make projects, not master-pieces. He analyzes the genre of the manifesto as a special rhetorical device of modernist discourse and shows how projects of biological and social engineering elaborate a vision of a future human type apt to exist under unprecedented conditions. Red Square, Black Square traces the process of totalitarian reduction of the modernist impulse into a rigid party doctrine. It follows the turbulent development of Russian Modernism through its categorical arrest under the official doctrine of "socialist realism." Moscow's Red Square is examined as a primal communist space that manifests the symbolism of power. Viewing communism as an aesthetically, not economically, motivated society, the book enacts "political aesthetics" as a discipline that provides the fundamental tool for an adequate and thorough understanding of communism. Todorov concludes by discussing the rise of nationalism in Eastern Europe as a post-communist condition, and the new mission of the intellectuals.
Birchers
Author: Matthew Dallek
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541673573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
How a notorious far right organization set the Republican Party on a long march toward extremism At the height of the John Birch Society’s activity in the 1960s, critics dismissed its members as a paranoid fringe. After all, “Birchers” believed that a vast communist conspiracy existed in America and posed an existential threat to Christianity, capitalism, and freedom. But as historian Matthew Dallek reveals, the Birch Society’s extremism remade American conservatism. Most Birchers were white professionals who were radicalized as growing calls for racial and gender equality appeared to upend American life. Conservative leaders recognized that these affluent voters were needed to win elections, and for decades the GOP courted Birchers and their extremist successors. The far right steadily gained power, finally toppling the Republican establishment and electing Donald Trump. Birchers is a deeply researched and indispensable new account of the rise of extremism in the United States.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541673573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
How a notorious far right organization set the Republican Party on a long march toward extremism At the height of the John Birch Society’s activity in the 1960s, critics dismissed its members as a paranoid fringe. After all, “Birchers” believed that a vast communist conspiracy existed in America and posed an existential threat to Christianity, capitalism, and freedom. But as historian Matthew Dallek reveals, the Birch Society’s extremism remade American conservatism. Most Birchers were white professionals who were radicalized as growing calls for racial and gender equality appeared to upend American life. Conservative leaders recognized that these affluent voters were needed to win elections, and for decades the GOP courted Birchers and their extremist successors. The far right steadily gained power, finally toppling the Republican establishment and electing Donald Trump. Birchers is a deeply researched and indispensable new account of the rise of extremism in the United States.